Emmerdale Trivia
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49 free Emmerdale trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Emmerdale began in October 1972 as a twice-weekly lunchtime serial about a Yorkshire farming family, written to last a single short season. Half a century on it is one of Britain's biggest soaps, with a village built on a stately-home estate, a pub that has been blown up, struck by lightning and besieged, and a cast list that has launched a Doctor Who companion, a Strictly champion and a jungle king. These 49 questions cover the show's history, families and sets: the Sugdens, Tates and Dingles, the landlords behind the bar, the plane crash, the storms and the motorway pile-up, the spin-off films, the awards, the international titles and the real villages where the cameras rolled. Each answer comes with a short explanation and a source. It suits long-time viewers, pub quiz setters and anyone who has picked the soap up through the classic repeats. The questions start broad and get harder as you go.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which original Emmerdale Farm cast member had earlier spent three years as Doctor Who companion Jamie McCrimmon?
Frazer Hines
Frazer Hines played Joe Sugden from 1972 to 1994, and still holds the record for the most Doctor Who episodes of any companion. He quit the farm because he was sick of going to work and coming home in the dark.
Q 02Which future Doctor Who companion joined Emmerdale as teenager Jasmine Thomas in 2005?
Jenna Coleman
Jenna Coleman played Jasmine Thomas until 2009, when the character was jailed for killing a policeman who had attacked her friend Debbie.
Q 03Emmerdale's December 1993 plane-crash episode drew complaints for airing near the fifth anniversary of which disaster?
Lockerbie
Lockerbie's fifth anniversary had fallen on 21 December 1993, nine days before the episode, and ITV received many complaints, yet the crash drew the soap's record audience of more than 18 million.
Q 04Which Emmerdale vet became the first lesbian character in a British soap when she came out in 1993?
Zoe Tate
Zoe Tate was British soap's first lesbian character, and Leah Bracknell's 16 years ended in 2005 with Zoe watching Home Farm explode as she was driven away, a departure voted Best Exit.
Q 05Which Emmerdale actor, Jack Sugden's adopted son on screen for 20 years, won Strictly Come Dancing in 2019?
Kelvin Fletcher
Kelvin Fletcher won the seventeenth Strictly with Oti Mabuse three years after leaving the soap, and has since become a farmer for real.
Q 06Emmerdale's purpose-built village set, built in the late 1990s, stands on the estate of which West Yorkshire stately home?
Harewood House
Harewood House's estate near Leeds took over after two real Yorkshire villages had served for the soap's first quarter-century, and the set was built as a near-copy of the second of them.
Q 07What title did ITV give the January 2026 one-off that merged Emmerdale with its Manchester-set sister soap?
Corriedale
Corriedale ran for an hour on 5 January 2026 and hinged on a crash on a dark road between the two soaps' homes, an idea boss Iain MacLeod took from his own loathed commute across the Pennines.
Q 08Which Emmerdale character, introduced in 2000 as a hosiery salesman, has been married seven times to five women?
Bob Hope
Bob Hope wed both Jean and Viv twice, and four of his seven marriages were already behind him when he first arrived in the village as a love interest for Viv.
Q 09Whose death was the guarded secret of Emmerdale's first live episode, broadcast for its 40th anniversary in 2012?
Carl King
Carl King was killed with a brick by love rival Cameron Murray in the hour-long live show of 17 October 2012, which also fitted in two births.
Q 10Which Absolute Beginners star played scheming Sadie King in Emmerdale from 2004 to 2006 and returned in 2026?
Patsy Kensit
Patsy Kensit left Sadie behind for a role in Holby City in 2006, and her comeback in September 2026 came a full 20 years after she was last seen in the village.
Q 11Which actor, Emmerdale's Aaron Dingle, won the 2021 series of I'm a Celebrity?
Danny Miller
Danny Miller was crowned the show's first King of the Castle, because the 2021 series was held at Gwrych Castle in Wales, weeks after the birth of his first child.
Q 12Which Mandy Dingle actress replaced Jeremy Beadle as host of You've Been Framed! in 1998?
Lisa Riley
Lisa Riley took over the clip show while still playing Mandy and fronted it until 2002; she rejoined the soap in 2019 and finished fifth on I'm a Celebrity in 2025.
Q 13Which Emmerdale serial killer, a nurse played by Paige Sandhu, arrived in the village in 2020?
Meena Jutla
Q 21Which Emmerdale hard man, played by Jeff Hordley since 2000, discovered that his 'uncle' Zak was really his father?
Cain Dingle
Cain Dingle also learned he was Debbie's father and fell for his cousin Charity, and Hordley was written out in 2006 only to return in 2009 with the role kept open for him.
Q 22How did Kim Tate leave Emmerdale in January 1999, an exit that won Claire King Best Exit at the British Soap Awards?
By helicopter
By helicopter, with her son and £190,000: producer Kieran Roberts said killing the 'ultimate survivor' would have been wrong, and the flight marked her triumph.
Q 23In which trade had Frank Tate made his fortune before buying Home Farm with wife Kim in 1989?
Haulage
Meena Jutla arrived as Manpreet Sharma's estranged sister and killed Leanna Cavanagh, Andrea Tate and Ben Tucker before she was caught; Sandhu was twice named Best Villain at the Inside Soap Awards.
Q 14Which 2001 ITV talent show cast an entire new five-member Emmerdale family, the Calders, who were gone within a year?
Soapstars
Soapstars drew thousands of hopefuls to auditions that began in Sheffield, and the actors' union Equity branded it an insulting affront to working performers.
Q 15In January 2019, which channel began re-running Emmerdale from its 1972 beginnings under the banner Classic Emmerdale?
ITV3
ITV3 scheduled two episodes every weekday afternoon, five times the pace of the original run, which went out just twice a week.
Q 16Which washing powder became Emmerdale's first on-air sponsor in December 1999?
Daz
Daz came aboard with the episode of 14 December 1999, and its successor in the slot, Heinz, later paid £10 million to push ketchup and salad cream around the Dales.
Q 17Which Emmerdale actors' trio, with Zak Dingle's Steve Halliwell, hit number five in 1996 cashing in on line dancing?
The Woolpackers
The Woolpackers first performed 'Hillbilly Rock Hillbilly Roll' in character on the soap itself, then took the single to number five in November 1996.
Q 18After Australia in 1997, which Italian city hosted the Dingles in Emmerdale's 1999 direct-to-video spin-off film?
Venice
Venice hosted the third of the soap's five spin-off films, and Coronation Street's Reg Holdsworth crossed over to appear in it, decades before the two soaps shared an episode.
Q 19Which Emmerdale chef, played by Mark Charnock since 1996, holds the record for the most episode appearances in the show?
Marlon Dingle
Marlon Dingle has passed 3,900 episodes and is the only character in all five spin-off films, and a 2022 storyline had him relearning to walk and talk after a severe stroke.
Q 20Which Emmerdale vet has married Mandy Dingle twice, in 1999 and again 25 years later in 2024?
Paddy Kirk
Paddy Kirk has married five times, and his 2002 wedding to Emily was a last-minute swap: another couple's bride got cold feet, so the two of them wed instead.
Haulage built the Tate fortune, and Frank died of a heart attack in 1997 during a row with Kim, who had just walked back in after being presumed dead.
Q 24Which Home Farm heir, played by Peter Amory, was left paralysed from the waist down by Emmerdale's 1993 plane crash?
Chris Tate
Chris Tate was dug out from under heavy rubble and never walked again, and his resentment fuelled feuds right up to his 2003 suicide, staged to frame his estranged wife Charity.
Q 25On which day of 2006 was Emmerdale's Tom King killed, launching the long-running 'Who Killed Tom King?' whodunnit?
Christmas Day
Christmas Day 2006 was also Tom's wedding day: he was struck over the head and pushed from a bedroom window at Home Farm, and one of his own sons was later unmasked as the killer.
Q 26Which Emmerdale vicar's dementia storyline, played by John Middleton, won Best Storyline at the 2017 British Soap Awards?
Ashley Thomas
Ashley Thomas was diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2015 and died on screen in April 2017, after one special episode shown entirely from his confused point of view.
Q 27Which character, British soap's first asexual regular, was killed in Emmerdale's 50th-anniversary storm in 2022?
Liv Flaherty
Liv Flaherty was crushed by a caravan in the anniversary storm week after Isobel Steele chose to leave for a music career, six years after arriving as Aaron's half-sister.
Q 28Which Woolpack barmaid, played by Sheree Murphy, died when the 2003–04 New Year storm brought the pub's chimney down?
Tricia Dingle
Tricia Dingle had just read her husband's list of 101 things he loved about her and turned back from leaving him when lightning struck the pub; the storm won Spectacular Scene of the Year.
Q 29Emmerdale's 2016 multi-car pile-up, voted Greatest Moment at the 2018 British Soap Awards, happened on which fictional road?
The Hotten bypass
The Hotten bypass crash began when Emma Barton pushed her husband James off a bridge into the traffic, and he later died in hospital; Hotten itself is filmed in Otley.
Q 30Which Emmerdale character did Richard Thorp play for over 30 years, first as an estate manager and later as the Woolpack's landlord?
Alan Turner
Alan Turner arrived in 1982 as a ruthless businessman and mellowed into a cuddly landlord, and after Thorp died in 2013 the character was written out as dying in his sleep.